Category: blogging

I Blog. Therefore I Am

Apologies to Descartes. This post is in no way related to him. Nor in any way philosophical. (He was, but this post isn’t.) This is my contribution to blogging terminology. Not that I see myself as a post-er girl for blogging, it’s just that I love words and being silly. And not necessarily in that order.

This is my 100th post. I didn’t realise, when I pressed publish on that day in mid-August last year, what fun this blogging ride was going to be. I didn’t expect to be living my life out loud like this; I didn’t really know what to expect, but the friends and the support and the love I have encountered have been at the same time humbling and overwhelming. I’ve made wonderful friends, and I learn from your amazing writing every day and I recognise the depth of my passion for writing. And the act of writing every day has made me hungry to hone my skills.This is true community and I love it.

So, on to my post for today: my entries into the great, universal, blogging lexicon. A bloxicon, if you will:

  1. bloggard n one who boasts endlessly in her posts
  2. introblogger n one who thinks before she blogs
  3. extroblogger n one who blogs before she thinks
  4. blinge v to moan or whinge
  5. bligot n a blogging bigot
  6. blog envy n an overwhelming wish that you’d written the post you’ve just read
  7. flashblog n an event that drives readers to your post, for example, being Freshly Pressed
  8. blog-noser n one who compliments your writing because she wants something from you, for example, to steal your readers. See also blog envy.
  9. blogiarism n the act of stealing someone else’s post
  10. blogue n a post to avoid like the plague; could also mean a post about shoes
  11. blogotist n a blogger whose life and posts and comments revolve around her
  12. blaff v to spill your coffee or spurt milk out of your nose while you read a funny post
  13. blarf v to spill your coffee or spurt milk out of your nose while you read a disgusting post
  14. blibble v to allow saliva to spill from your mouth while reading a food post
  15. blingxiety n a fear that your blog may be too posh
  16. overblogging n the sharing of too much information
  17. blol n an acronym for “false laugh false laugh”
  18. blomb n a post that goes nowhere
  19. bloax n a fake post, or a post by a fake blogger
  20. hyperbloggilate v to use too much punctuation
  21. amblogilent adj to be in two minds about a post, or to be in two blogs at once
  22. bloring adj dull, unimaginative, usually refers to a post
  23. postitute n a blogger who will write anything to get comments
  24. bliyotch n a not very nice blogging female
  25. wannablog n someone who wishes they could blog
  26. blog-standard adj ordinary, common, everyday
  27. Bloghty n the country I blog from
  28. blong n bells and whistles you might attach to your blog
  29. bollogs n nonsense, rubbish. (Not to be confused with the dog’s bollogs, which can sometimes be used as a compliment.)
  30. writer’s blog n an affliction rendering you unable to think of what to post about next
  31. OCB n obsessive compulsive blogging; can manifest itself in many ways, for example the overwhelming need to post at the exact same time every day, or the need to ensure you use a word starting with each letter of the alphabet, in order, in every post
  32. blob n a post that does nothing, just sits there; a couch potato post
  33. blogged down adj to get side-tracked with too much detail
  34. bloggy-no-mates n a blog post with no comments. This is a sad word.
  35. ASBLOG n an order for posting social offensive material (derived from ASBO – a civil order , in use in the UK, made against someone displaying anti-social behaviour)
  36. blovvered adj what you are not, if someone leaves an unnecessarily nasty comment on your post. Example: Face? Blovvered? (Possibly originates from Catherine Tate, British comedienne.)
  37. BA n Bloggers Anonymous
  38. blingo n blog slang; could also mean a numbers game played via blog posts, but this is not very popular.
  39. colonoscopost n a post that, when you read it, makes you feel very uncomfortable
  40. beatblox v it’s a rap

I have used the feminine version of words and pronouns to avoid having to write he/she, which can get very boring.

I hope this has enlightened, edified and educated you today. If not, I hope it made you blaff. Please send me your additions – I’ve no doubt there are plenty of wonderful words to add to the bloxicon.

In the words of my favourite Cape Town comedian, Marc Lottering’s character, Aunty Merle, “Ooh, I can be so foolish.”

Sunshine signing off for today!

 

The Colour of Monday

There’s some doubt in the media about whether or not today is Blue Monday. Heck, from where I sit, Monday is blue, grey and drizzly. Downright miserable, if you ask me, with not much at all to redeem it. Navy Blue Monday.

When I was at boarding school, and probably through my high school and university years too, I used to get the Sunday night blues. That mild feeling of dread that the weekend was over – and, as a boarder, that often meant a weekend away from the hostel   – and Monday would bring with it a bunch of its friends – four other weekdays – to work through until the next weekend. I loved school and sport, but my slight dis-ease related more to the freedom and generally school-rule-free abandon that a weekend away allowed me. Even if I didn’t go out, boarding school rules were quite relaxed at weekends. And we got to listen to our radios, have “free” swimming and have a roast for lunch on Sundays.

When our sons were at school, our weekends were just fabulous: most Saturdays were spent watching our boys play rugby or water-polo, depending on the season, and the rest of the weekend revolved around our family. Sunday evenings always brought that ripple of disappointment as I acknowledged the end of a weekend and the dawning of a busy week where we all went in different directions.

As a working person, I did find that Monday had a charm all of its own. For most of my working career, I’ve loved my jobs and Monday brought with it new and exciting opportunities.

Now that we’re in London, and empty-nesters for now, Mondays are a different animal all together.  Some Mondays I wake up with hope and excitement and a renewed sense of enthusiasm for all that the week holds. Other Mondays not so much. Today is one of the latter.

Last week I wrote about my start to 2011 as a ride on the backwards rollercoaster and in the dark. I don’t know if this is supposed to tell me something, but I lost 15 subscribers that day. Just like that! I don’t think I’ve gained that many in a day, so to lose them seemed quite careless! Who were they, and where did they go? And was my post that bleak that they just unsubscribed on the spot?

At the beginning of January, I got an email from WordPress giving me a summary of my statistics for the five months I’ve been blogging. In the email they congratulated me for my busiest day ever – 3 December 2010 – when I got 2 views. This was the second half of my Freshly Pressed day, and how they lost 2,861 from that day and a good couple of thousand from the day before, I’m not entirely sure. If I thought losing 15 subscribers was careless, this, WordPress, was entirely irresponsible.

The media tells us there are things we can do to feel better on a Blue Monday: sing a song, sit in the sunshine, listen to the sea, listen to the birds, or go for a walk. In drizzly, grey London, where I am nowhere near the sea nor sunshine, and I don’t fancy a walk in the rain, I could stand on my head and whistle Dixie through my a*** and it won’t change a jot about Monday. I’ll live with it for today and tomorrow it will be Tuesday.

And Tuesday will hold its own charm. It brings me the privilege to write my 100th post. I can’t quite believe I’m hitting the ton, and I’m really excited to be doing so. There’ll be no mention of Blue Monday, no whingeing, no whining. I hope it will be pure Sunshine in London – lame humour served with a lashing of optimism. Actually, it’ll just be lame humour. Sorry I can’t find either today. I wonder what colour Tuesday will be?

Sunshine signing off for today!

 

Big blogger’s watching you

A few years ago I did a short sound-bite for national television news. As media spokesperson for our organisation, I had to provide comment on a tragic incident that had dominated the media that day. It wasn’t my first or only such interview.

The reporter and cameraman arrived at our offices. The reporter chatted to me while the cameraman set up his camera in the corner of the room. Reporter and I stood next to each other, like the two old men in the Muppets. She and I engaged in small talk without looking at each other. If I’d been a guy, I guess I would have hooked my thumbs into my belt, altered my stance to an at ease one, and with chin down I would have looked through the top of my eyes and spoken in a slightly deep, nasally version of my own voice. I did the female version of that, and stood with bent elbows and hands on the back of my hips.

Cameraman gave us the go, and we sat down, did a quick sound check and made sure I was sitting within good eyeshot of the camera. Reporter asked me a few questions. I stumbled over my words a bit to begin with but knew that would be edited out. I knew what message I needed to get across, and I knew that I needed to use snappy, information-rich sentences because, heck, I’d probably get 15 seconds of airtime. I knew all of that. What I hadn’t thought about was …

Watching television news that night, with customary cushion in front of face because I hate watching myself in any kind of video, my heart started racing as the piece came up. As the news anchor read the back story, what should come on screen but her nibs with hands on hips… And with the gormless expression of one engaged in small talk. Like a Muppet. It seemed like I was on the screen like that for hours before they cut to the interview, which, by the way, came across just fine. (Although why don’t they use soft focus and bring a make-up person along with them? Just asking.)

I know the golden rules of there being no such thing in dealing with the media as off the record and that when doing television interviews, you watch what you say from the moment the camera starts rolling because anything can be used. What I hadn’t thought about was that the camera was rolling as the cameraman was setting up, and I was caught with my, well, hands on hips. And it didn’t look too good. Or elegant. I was just glad I hadn’t had an inelegant scratch or picked my nose. Not that I would, but just imagine?

Fast forward to two weeks ago, and my blog post about the Van Morrison concert. Effusive would be an insipid term for my descriptions of the man and the concert. That blog post, in its entirety and, fortunately with correct attribution and a link to my blog, appeared on a Van Morrison news blog that day. I still can’t decide whether I am thrilled about that or not.

And here’s the thing: in my blog post, I wrote about the “chirpy Dutch chappy in checked shirt” who sat next to me and helped me with the song titles. He read my blog post on the other site. He commented after the post, “Hey Sunshine in London, I’m the cheery Dutch guy you wrote about. I didn’t realise you were writing a review, let alone that you would mention me.”

I sat open-mouthed as I read that, thinking how grateful I was that I had written what I had about him. What if the “stiff-lipped English couple” on the other side of me had read that blog post? They could well have, I don’t know.

When I got to my zumba class last week, the first person I locked eyes with was the person I had described, a few weeks back, perhaps not as well as I could have. Actually, I wrote that she couldn’t dance. I smiled coyly at her and slunk to the back of the class thinking, “I-hope-she-doesn’t-read-my-blog-I-hope-she-doesn’t-read-my-blog.” I guess there is no reason she would, but who knows?

The beauty of blogging and citizen journalism is that everything is out there. We all have our opinions, and we all comment on social issues, events, political issues, whatever takes our fancy. But the flipside of it is also that everything is out there. Here in the UK, with CCTV cameras everywhere, there is also someone watching you all the time – just ask the thoughtless cat in the wheelie bin lady.

My television news interview that day was a lesson to me. And I introduced it into my media training workshops for my colleagues, much to their amusement. The Van blog post incident was a lesson to me too. I tend not to write about friends or family; I don’t want anyone to think they have to watch their words because what they say will end up in my blog. I tend also to write within the boundaries of my interests and knowledge, and heck, if it makes me laugh and falls within these boundaries, I’ll write about it. My intention is never to mock or be nasty, but living my life out loud in this way means anyone – and everyone – can read what I write.

So here I stand, with hands on hips, not wanting to censor the fun out of my blog posts, but wanting to acknowledge the public face of blogging. It just makes me think.

Sunshine signing off for today.

Forwards, sideways and blogwards

We would really love to go home to Cape Town for Christmas. But last night, I said to my husband that if that isn’t going to be possible, maybe we should go up to visit his family in Scotland for Christmas. And then I said, “Imagine the blog I could write about that!”

Which reminded my husband of how much he had thought about me at university earlier this week. They had a lecture about confidentiality and the lecturer opened his presentation with a cartoon of a Catholic priest in a confessional box, listening to the distressed confessions of his congregant. The priest’s thought bubble read, “I’m so going to blog about this.”

I realised that that’s me! I know that I have always had a keen sense of the absurd and I do notice funny things that others might not. My family have often listened to my ridiculous stories and then said things like, “It could only happen to you.” I disagree. It could happen to anyone, anywhere, but I notice and remember! And I have a compulsion to tell everyone about it. (That’s a topic for another day!)

But that’s me. And somehow lately I have noticed that my blog radar scans the horizon and it beeps and zooms in on everything I see around me. It’s like I have a renewed sense of observation. I also find myself formulating my blog post in my head. Do you do that?

Which also got me thinking about my blog. It’s so freaking random! I know that I write, largely, about being a Saffa living in London. And about Saffa slang. Oh, and Zimbabwean slang. And music. And London. And my husband’s Scottish relatives. And about his Scottishness. Oh, and about job hunting. (Yawn.)

And then I realised that my blog reflects my life right now. It is not going the way I had expected. And the thought occurred to me that my life in London is a bit like my sister’s drag racing. Fast, for sure. Exciting? Of course. Fun? That goes without saying. But not what you would expect. Let me explain.

My sister is married to a champion drag racer. He is one fast dude. He has a rail that could make a grown man cry, and a collection of Chevies that is, well, embarrassingly awesome. With a passion such as this, it’s not surprising his family have all come alongside him. Well, to a certain extent. He and my sister and their son and daughter, have regularly taken part in drag races. Not in the fancy rails, but in street cars and on a straight 80 metre course at the racing track.

We went with them to some drag races in Cape Town when they visited us there on holiday. My brother-in-law’s sweet Chev Lumina caused a stir and he had men lining up to drool over his engine and say, “Please can I race against you?” Boys never grow up. Their toys just become more expensive.

My sister then told me about an experience she had had of drag racing in Zimbabwe. I will relate the story in Sunshine-speak.

My sister is one mean driver. And competitive to boot. It was her turn to race. Out of a dust storm of revving, her vehicle emerged to take its spot in the starting dock. She manoeuvred the car this way and that until she was in exactly the right spot. She eyed her competition with that look that I know so well. Eat my dust, she thought. She glared at her enemy and growled, and that drag racing music came up all around. Eye of the Tiger, I think. And then it all went into slow motion… she watched for the cue of the green light … the crowd grew anxious with anticipation … she revved once more and the light went green … this was her moment. GO!

She stepped on the gas and her car shot backwards. She managed to shift gear and finish the race in second place, but that was not what she had expected to do. It is easy to understand how it happened, and it is now one of my favourite racing stories. Ever.

The parallels with my life in London are just too obvious to mention. And I guess, along with that, goes my blog. I don’t always move forward. I turn down plenty of side streets. And I head off on a tangent when something catches my eye. I hope I don’t take you backwards, and I seriously don’t need to win. But thank you for coming along for the ride. I hope I take you to new and unusual places, that I don’t drive badly and make you carsick, and that the scenery is good.

Am I focused? Not so much. Am I bovvered? Not at all. Am I having fun? Hell, yeah. I really hope you are too!

Sunshine signing off for today!